John Armstrong surveys the debris of National's "shambolic" first few days of attempting to run a Parliament, and deems the unnecessary recourse to urgency on the new bills "reprehensible".

Then again, Labour might want to think very carefully about following Idiot/Savant's advice and consider that the last Congress ended up with even worse approval ratings than Dubya -- which is a dubious achievement indeed.

The bickering is as much about who controls Parliament as anything else. With early indications Labour and the Greens are shaping as a strong Opposition, it is vital National shows the Government is in charge.

National's hard line yesterday followed a two-hour Labour filibuster on a minor procedural motion the day before. National suspects Labour wants to force proceedings into Saturday, thus allowing it to claim victory if all the bills National wants to put forward have not been passed by that evening when the House is obliged to rise regardless of the urgency motion.

Oh, I don't know -- perhaps Brownlee and Cullen can repair to the nearest urinal and compare cocks in the traditional manner, while the grown-ups keep the place running.

We chanced on Parliament TV last night (not our usual Programming of Choice) and I was impressed by the strength of debate from the Labour side--Pete Hodgson and Moana Mackey, in particular. It might be small comfort but there is something in now occupying the moral high ground.

Are we also beginning to see the beginnings of the terrible fixes the Maori Party are getting into?

I don't have any time for the idea that opposition should be all fluffy in order not to be seen as haters and wreckers.

Neither do I, but when there are people who don't know whether they're going to have jobs in a year, a solid Opposition really has to bring a lot more to the table than smart arse points of order from Michael Cullen, and Trevor Mallard baiting Hone Harawira.

The TVNZ site is nice in terms of news values, but I don't like the whole concept of the continually changing headline. It looks nice and goes with the "telly" concept (I suppose) but I'd rather get a simple list and work from there.

I recently made the switch to using RSS feeds and a reader and find it much better than what I've been doing for years, which is regularly visiting some web sites. I use NetNewsWire, but that might be mac only.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill be now read a first time.

Dr Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Would it not be appropriate for us to see this bill?

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. [Interruption] The bill is on the Table.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Speaking to the point of order, I say that a copy of this bill was made available to National Party members this morning before their caucus.

Gerry Brownlee: The bill was delivered to us halfway through our caucus this morning. One copy was given to me, and another copy was given to Dr Brash. There are only two copies on this side of the Table, and they were brought into the House just as Dr Cullen was about to speak. This debate should not progress until there are sufficient copies on the Table for every member to have an opportunity to read it.

Madam SPEAKER: I understand that copies of the bill are available for members on the Table.

Gerry Brownlee: I seek leave for the House to adjourn for 20 minutes while the bill is distributed.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? Yes, there is. [Interruption] Members, please, we will preserve a little bit of respect and decorum.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Of course, when bills are moved for introduction and passing under urgency, they are tabled subsequent to the motion being approved.

It's opposition's job to oppose. If that means countering urgency with a filibuster, then that's how it has to happen.

Not under MMP. It's the opposition's (to use the archaic, FPP term) to advocate their own position. This is not necessarily the same as opposing.

As for Craig, I think it would be nice to see the non-government parties standing up against this abuse of the Parliamentary process (and to all the trolls who are going to crawl out of the woodwork whining about Labour's use of urgency, fuck off. Or, more politiely, "go and read 15 years of Hansard to look at how urgency is used and abused, and come back when you have an informed opinion on the matter, rather than whatever crap you picked up from DPF's sewer". Not all urgency is the same, and there's a world of difference between e.g. using urgency to get a bill to committee or pass it through its final stages (fine), or pass your tax bill so that it can all be in place by April 1 (fine), and using to to pass serious non-financial policy without any select committee stage (not fine)).

To get back to the point: National stood up for parliamentary process in 2005 by making the House unamangeable in response to Labour summarily collapsing a member's day so Michael Cullen could go to dinner. That was a Good Thing. And it would be a Good Thing as well if the current non-government parties did the same to defend the Parliamentary process now. Yes, the government gets to set policy. But it should not be allowed to bypass select committee and public scrutiny while doing so.

Are we also beginning to see the beginnings of the terrible fixes the Maori Party are getting into?

Yes. In particular, I wonder how it will play amongst the Maori Party's base that their "representatives" voted to feather their own nests while voting against offsetting National's de facto hike of taxes on the poor with tax credits.

Yes. In particular, I wonder how it will play amongst the Maori Party's base that their "representatives" voted to feather their own nests while voting against offsetting National's de facto hike of taxes on the poor with tax credits.

I saw on the news last night (TV3 6pm) that the tax changes will not help people at all who are earning below $45K, but already receiving WFF.

I feel completely screwed. The new government promising bigger tax cuts is giving me nothing, while the old government which promised smaller tax cuts, would have given me something.

If we're going to have tax cuts now that the economy is shot, can I at least get some pie while everything goes to hell?

Me being one of them. I despise Flash. My primary platform at home is FreeBSD on amd64, and Flash support is a little flaky, at best. So I just don't bother. Some sites offer alternatives, but many don't. And it's getting worse. How they cater to the visually-impaired is beyond me, but it seems that website designers just don't give a fuck about anything beyond pretty, shiny, more! Photo collections on the Herald site are unusable without Flash, unlike Stuff's photo collections which work just fine at home.

News flash to the fucktards: Not everyone who comes to your site has (or wants to have) Flash. Not everyone who comes to your site - at least not all first-time visitors, and the aim is usually to get people to come back - can see the pretty clicky shit that you've got going on. Learn to play nice with the rest of the world, y'bastards!

I should point out that this doesn't apply to PAS, which is highly usable even in a text browser (which is the real test of accessibility).

News flash to the fucktards: Not everyone who comes to your site has (or wants to have) Flash.

Hear, hear. I use Firefox for 99% of my browsing, and have not installed the Flash plugin. When I find that I really need it, I fire up Explorer, but the hassle means I mostly don't bother to visit flash-heavy sites.

No. Under National, only the rich get pie. This is what they call "an incentive" (though what for is unclear).

I don't know if they do. Based on my income I'm technically 'rich' (in reality I'm as middle class as it gets) and most - if not all - of what I gain in the tax cuts I lose in KiwiSaver reductions and tax changes to my employer contribution.

I guess rich people who don't have KiwiSaver will make out, I just doubt there are very many of them. This seems less like a tax cut and more like an accounting scam.

Regarding the urgency motion, it seems as if the Nats have confused cause and effect; they've decided to take advantage of their media honeymoon to do something controversial and unpopular without figuring out that their honeymoon was only going to last until they, well, did unpopular controversial stuff.

They still haven't come and run fibre optics into my lounge. Yesterday there was a chicken on my drive (once it got over the fence past the gate the dogs got it real quick, scratch one chicken), but I haven't seen anyone on my street get their pony. And now no fucking pie!